A Reset for Multilateralism

Multilateral institutions were no different from their member states in that the COVID-19 pandemic caught them completely off guard. But compare the initial responses of most international organisations to those of some well-functioning states  and history — if written with due diligence — will not judge multilateralism kindly.

Why do we need multilateral institutions?

When the pandemic struck, most multilateral institutions failed to rise to the existential challenge that the disease posed to people across the world. There are several lessons of the pandemic that are yet to be learnt if multilateralism is to be reformed and made fit for purpose. Supporters of multilateralism have a standard justification for the existence of international organisations: in a globalised, interconnected world, there are just too many problems that cannot be solved by any one country alone.

Multilateral institutions are supposed to facilitate collective action towards the provision of global public goods (such as free trade and global public health) and limit the ill-effects of public bads. Prevention of the spread of a highly contagious disease — one with high fatality rates, and many unknowns about potentially long-term damage to survivors — is exactly the kind of problem that multilateral organisations should be able to address. If prevention fails and pandemics nonetheless develop, it is reasonable to expect that the relevant multilateral organisations are able to curtail the hoarding of medicines and essential equipment and limit the exploitation of scarcities and vulnerabilities by countries for geostrategic gain.

The most glaring failures came from the organisation that was directly mandated to address health issues — the World Health Organisation (WHO).

On these fronts, the nodal multilateral organisations failed in their initial responses. The most glaring failures came from the organisation that was directly mandated to address health issues — the World Health Organisation (WHO). These early failures came at a time that was particularly critical to curtailing the spread of COVID-19, and thereby contributed to the transformation of the outbreak in Wuhan, China, into a global crisis.

The Pulitzer-Prize winning historian and journalist Anne Applebaum summarises the sins of omission and commission from the WHO in the following words: ‘…the WHO failed the world in some important ways during the early days of the crisis. Certainly the organisation adhered far too closely to the narrative of a Chinese government that initially sought to conceal the nature and spread of the coronavirus. As late as January 14, the organisation’s leadership ignored evidence from Taiwan — which is not, thanks to Chinese pressure, a WHO member — that the novel coronavirus could be transmitted from person to person.’ According to Anne Applebaum other mistakes followed: the WHO’s ‘strange insistence’ that face masks were not necessary and the WHO’s decision to wait until March 11, 2020 to declare the existence of a pandemic, even though the disease had already spread. ‘The WHO’s determination to compliment China in its public statements, and ignore Chinese mistakes, was equally strange…

The WHO had failed to contain the rapid and global spread of the disease, with dire cost to human life. As the death count mounted, many countries began to turn inward, hoarding key medicines and personal protective equipment for their own people or agreeing to trade these only with key allies. Even the European Union, which prides itself on its soft power and commitment to values, such as human rights, labour standards, and environmental standards, decided to put up emergency export restrictions on hospital supplies for non-EU members. This move threatened devastating consequences for many third countries, besides potential supply chain disruption for medical equipment for the EU itself.  Discord also erupted with neighbours of the EU. Recall, for instance, the Serbian president’s bitter reaction to the declaration of export restraints from the EU; he said, ‘European solidarity does not exist. It was a fairy tale on paper’ and announced that Serbia would turn to China instead. Polling data further revealed high levels of disappointment with the EU even amongst its own members.

Just when the world needed it most, multilateralism failed us at enormous human and economic cost.

Amidst this disruption that was taking place in global supply chains, the organisation that should have been able to step in and limit the damage was the World Trade Organisation (WTO). But the WTO, already beleaguered in its negotiation, monitoring and dispute settlement functions, was not in much of a position to act. And even if the organisation had not been beset with these multiple problems, there was little in its rules to put a stop to the export restraints that were being put in place, or indeed the different ways in which trade was being used for geostrategic gain. So, it stood by helplessly and watched the crisis deepen. Just when the world needed it most, multilateralism failed us at enormous human and economic cost.

Lessons to be learnt

There are two tough lessons that the pandemic has been teaching us, and it remains to be seen whether the guardians and supporters of multilateralism are willing to learn them. This includes well-intentioned world leaders, international civil servants, members of civil society, and others who believe that multilateral cooperation is still worth pursuing.

But this multilateralism was not built for a world where the very ties that were supposed to bind nations together in peaceful harmony, could become ‘weaponised’. And while we have seen cases of weaponised interdependence in the last years, the coronavirus pandemic has revealed the extent to which countries can exploit global value chains to their own advantage, even when dealing with life-and-death matters. Against this background, calls by global leaders to not close one’s economies, preserve global value chains and reinforce multilateralism, ring desperately hollow, especially to those who have seen friends and family directly affected by the pandemic. If multilateralism is to have a chance, these concerns need to be addressed head on.

The second lesson is also not a new one, but once again, the pandemic has brought it into sharp focus. This lesson has to do with the importance of narratives and domestic politics. An important reason why we have seen such a strong backlash against multilateralism in the last years is the fact that some politicians (from both the Left and the Right) have successfully harnessed (and fanned) the disappointment and anger of those who believe that the gains of globalisation have passed them by. Former US President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ narrative is an example of this, and it is one that appealed to a good proportion of the American electorate in the 2016 presidential election because it claimed to take their pain seriously.

There is an urgent need for convincing narratives, backed by data and grounded in fact, that can show people why multilateralism is worth preserving.

In contrast, many narratives about the benefits of having a rules-based multilateral system have been solid but largely technocratic in content. As such, for some years now, pro-multilateralism narratives have been criticised for being too far removed from ordinary people and representing the interests only of a ‘global elite’.

Today, amidst the death and destruction spread by the pandemic, calls to renew multilateralism are even more vulnerable to such charges. There is an urgent need for convincing narratives, backed by data and grounded in fact, that can show people why multilateralism is worth preserving. To do this well, we must be able to show how multilateral cooperation will help every individual within our societies. This needs to be done by engaging stakeholders within states at the local, regional and national levels, and also by working closely with like-minded states and transnationally. And while the importance of having convincing narratives would have been useful in previous years as well, it is especially important at a time when people across different parts of the world are fighting not only for their livelihoods, but also for their lives.

NATO as a pioneer for a global approach?

On the last point, while careful to state that China was not an adversary of the alliance, he went on to say the following in a speech delivered at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg in June 2020: ‘It is clear that China does not share our values. Democracy, freedom, and the rule of law… there is a clear pattern of authoritarian behaviour at home and increased assertiveness and bullying abroad.’

In order to cope with these global challenges, it is best ‘for Europe and North America to continue to stand together. And for us to take a more global approach. Working even more closely with our international partners to defend our values in a more competitive world. Partners near and far — like Finland and Sweden. But also Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.’ One might ask why NATO represents the exception to the norm in learning the urgent lessons of the last few months. There are several explanations, including those of the specific workings of the different institutions, leadership and nature of membership. Moreover, NATO, by definition, is a non-universal organisation and its mandate on security matters perhaps allows it to take concerns of both geoeconomics and values more readily into account. If these two lessons remain unheeded in other multilateral organisations, we risk further backlashes against globalisation. We risk the emergence of a world of shallow and meaningless multilateralism that is de facto autarkism, that will work to the detriment of almost all countries, and especially the poor in both rich and poor countries.

We risk the emergence of a world of shallow and meaningless multilateralism that is de facto autarkism, that will work to the detriment of almost all countries, and especially the poor in both rich and poor countries.

What is the purpose of multilateralism?

To address these issues seriously requires a cold and hard look at the question of the purpose of multilateralism. For far too often, we still hear a repetition of the mantra that multilateralism matters. That multilateralism matters is true, but reiterating this does not get us very far in reforming it or rebuilding it.

Ultimately, multilateralism is an instrument of international cooperation — no more, no less. It is up to us to decide on the values that multilateral instruments should uphold, and the goals that they should pursue. This requires re-examining, and probably redefining, the purpose of multilateralism. This, in turn, requires much greater attention to values and like-mindedness than has been forthcoming thus far. It necessitates opening up to the possibility of a gradual and selective decoupling from strategic rivals, or at least being able to exercise such a threat credibly.

Simply aggregating countries that actually stand for fundamentally different societal and political goals — for instance, liberalism and pluralism vs authoritarianism, or market-friendly rules vs rules that support high levels of state intervention — under one umbrella of universal multilateralism with a vague set of rules will no longer work. It will likely condemn our multilateral institutions to a state of ever deeper malaise and further breakdown.